Last month, the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia came down with a verdict against Radovan Karadzic, the first president of the Serb Republic, and leader during the Bosnian War of the 1990's. Regardless of the merits of the ICTY's case against Karadzic, the manner in which it was conducted, and the refusal of the Court to investigate properly, let alone prosecute NATO for the crimes it committed leading to and during the secession wars of Yugoslavia brings into question both the utility of the International Tribunal itself, and more broadly, the concept of international law entirely. In fact, exemptions from international law that have allowed the litany of wars waged by the West since the dissolution of the Soviet Union can all be traced back to the Former Yugoslavia, where the United States made sure to exclude itself and its allies from the "supreme international crime" of aggression. Luciana Bohne is a retired (and recovering) academic, and co-founder of Film Criticism, a journal of cinema studies at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. She describes herself as possessing "an internationalist outlook, having been born in Yugoslavia, raised in Italy, and matured intellectually in the US." Luciana's articles on politics and mainly Italian film history appear at CounterPunch.org, where her latest article, 'The Cowards' Wars' was, she says, occasioned by the sentencing of Radovan Karadzic to forty years imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. Luciana Bohne in the first half. And; I went down Monday to Victoria's Canadian Forces recruiting centre to talk to some of the people observing the international Day of Action Against Military Spending. For Canada's part, VOWS, or Voice of Women for Peace called on the Canadian Government to: "Substantially reduce military expenditures and re-allocate them to urgent social and environmental needs;" saying, "The federal government should invest in programs that will reduce poverty and help our country transition to a low-carbon, green economy and NOT on combat missions overseas and buying new warships and fighter jets." Giving voice for a world without militarism with VOWS in the second half. And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things coming to the streets of our city, and beyond there too, this week. But first, Luciana Bohne and the writing and unwriting of laws granting impunity ad infinitum, based on assumptions of the "altruistic morality of intervening to adjust the affairs of the world."

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